Fox Trap
by pippin143
Summary: (s2e12 - Echoes) I hate seeing how Mike is becoming more and more like Briggs, so here is a short AU of how the scene between Mike and Paige should have ended-Mike tells her the truth about Lina and his undercover operation at the human trafficking house.


"At Sulla's," she began carefully, receiving his full, but hesitant attention. "I've been going over it every day, and I know I was being unreasonable, and you did what you had to do. I get that. But when he hit me, when he physically hit me, how did you feel?" she asked, eyes wet and voice careful.

"When I was a kid, my grandpa had a cabin upstate." He began, eyes locked onto her. "And we'd go hiking, and every time it seemed we would come across a fox trap. An empty one, after the fox had—,"

"Gnawed off its leg." She said quietly, looking down.

He paused, gaze wavering, "And I always felt so bad for that poor, hobbled fox. And I thought about how horrible it must feel. But now I know that that part, the after, that's the easy part. The hard part," he said, voice choking and eyes finding hers again, "The hard part is when you willow it down to two options: you can wait it out and die, or you can take this piece of yourself…you can mutilate it, destroy it…and maybe live."

His eyes were shining with tears, just like hers. She stared at him, her expression broken and unreadable. "Does that answer your question?" He asked in a shaky breath, fighting his emotions.

"Yeah." She breathed after a moment with a little disappointed nod. "That's actually quite incredible—that even when you're talking about me being slapped around you're the fox." The tears escaped and her voice rose with a sarcastic laugh. "I mean, what am I, Mike? I'm the leg?"

Mike sighed, frustrated and confused. He wanted to tell her, to explain to her the truth about what had happened that night to Lina, that her deepest fears were true. But he had thrown that chance away when he irrationally decided to cover her death up. "What do you want from me?" He said finally, closing his eyes so he no longer had to see her face. A face that used to be full of love and understanding was now replaced with betrayal, disgust, and worst of all, hate.

"I want you back in the trap."

A knife through his heart would have hurt less than those words. She didn't get it. She thought he meant she was expendable, something he was willing to give up to survive. He looked down in hurt and shame, letting the pathetic tears fall as she turned away. Was he really going to let it end like this, all for a dirty secret she had already unearthed?

Paige walked away briskly, but with just enough lag for him to say something else. To tell her the truth. She just wanted him to admit it, say he was sorry and wrong. It wouldn't make things better, it wouldn't bring Lina back or undue the horrors the girls experienced at that…that meat house. Heck, it wouldn't even let her forgive him. But it was a start.

"Paige, wait!" He called after her. She had just made it to the doorway.

She balled her fists, resisting the urge to wipe her tears away. That would give him the wrong impression, like she didn't want him to see how much his actions had hurt her and those poor girls. He deserved to see her like this. She turned, her face full of all the anguish and hate she could muster, and just as she was about to spit and response, she stopped, her train of thought derailing as she gazed into an expression mirroring her own. Mike had fallen apart.

"Paige, I can't do this anymore." He cried. "I'm not like the rest of you, I can't keep living a lie. Even for the job, I can't…it hurts me and now it's hurting you. I can't..."

"Mike…" she said softly, forgetting her anger for a moment. She didn't know what to say next, but left it at that. He knew she was listening and waiting for him to continue.

"Paige," his voice firm. "What happened back there…it killed me inside. To pretend like I didn't care, like I was used to that sort of treatment towards women. Like I was some kind of monster." He paused, taking in a deep breath. "You're a part of me, Paige. Not some fox leg that I can live without, but a part of me I had to let get hurt in order for you to survive."

"Survive." she said quietly, echoing his words and mulling them over. She took a deep breath, settling herself. "I know if you had acted different and came to help me even acted like you cared it would have gotten us in trouble." She drew her brows together in frustration. "But I'd asked you to leave me, to get Lina out instead. I'm could've handled myself in there. Those other girl, girls like Lina, they couldn't."

"You know I couldn't do that." He said. It wasn't spoken aggressively, as if he was telling her thinking like that was wrong, but in a hurt, weak way. "But when it happened to Lina...I couldn't go through something like that again. Letting a man abuse a scared woman right in front of me and not doing all for the sake of a cover. So when Sulla started hurting Lina," he said, choking on his words again, "When he tried to rape her, I couldn't do it anymore. I kept thinking of how I let him hurt you, how I chose to gnaw off my leg like the fox, and I decided to choose another way out. I mentally went back into that trap and chose to wait for the trapper, hoping he'd set me free."

"Mike…" Paige began quietly, fighting the urge touch him. "What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying…" He breathed deeply, closed his eyes and scrunched his face the way he did whenever he was about to do something he really didn't want to do. When he reopened his eyes he forced them to lock on to Paige's. "What I'm saying is I fought Sulla. I told him I was taking Lina out of there because I couldn't let him damage the merchandise…and he didn't like that. Especially since Lina wanted to go with me. I'd told her I was your friend and I was getting her out."

He had stopped talking and was biting his lip so hard he was beginning to draw blood. He had to do it, there was no going back now. He made this mess, him and his career launching ego had gotten the people he cared about hurt and an innocent girl he was supposed to protect killed. "Sulla stabbed her. He stabbed her and he wouldn't stop…and I—I just couldn't let it happen. I jumped on him and wailed on him until his thugs ripped me off. They were going to kill me too…but I got them to calm down. Then Sulla told me to take care of the…the mess." Another tear rolled down his reddened face and he swallowed trying his best to continue. "I was about to call you." He breathed. "I actually had called you…but I panicked. I cancelled the number. I knew my operation would get shut down and I couldn't let that happen. So I pretended Lina got away." He broke eye contact, once again being overwhelmed by the shame. "After the operation fell, after Solano's guys burned that human trafficking house to the ground…I realized how stupid I'd been. How monstrous and stupid. And I know it's too late now…but I'm sorry."

"And Lina?" Paige said flatly, her tears now gone, dried up into itchy salt streaks on her face.

"I burned her body." He said mournfully, like a defendant admitting their guilt on the stand. "I burned her body, just like you guessed."

"Why did you have to lie to me? I could've forgiven you for her death, maybe eventually for covering it up, but why'd you have to lie to me? To set up this whole escapade of her escaping, injuring you, hiding out in who-knows-where? Why?"

"I'm so sorry, Paige." He said again, looking like a whipped animal.

"Yeah. Me too."


End file.
